


You Didn’t Win (But at Least You Tried)

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Aftermath, Coping, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Talking, past hurt current comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 10:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20424368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: The thing about the straight-across scars on Zolf’s inner arm is—





	You Didn’t Win (But at Least You Tried)

The thing about the scars is that they are old.

Zolf’s gotten fresher tears in that arm since, skin healing back wrong, and he’s covered the outside of his forearm with tattoos. Not the inside, though. He couldn’t stand more pain there, even if it was from a needle instead of—

not the point.

The thing about the scars is that they are old and faded and no one ever notices them unless they’re really looking. Zolf really looks, sometimes. They’re asymmetric, clean and paired up, two neat lines about half a centimetre apart repeated over and over and over on his skin. In his skin. Between his skin, where the blood would well up in the cracks he opened for it.

Not the point.

The thing about the scars is that they are almost forgotten. Forgotten by his skin, by his mind, by his heart, even, because miraculously, he’s managed to shed the boulder from his chest in exchange for a pebble in his boot. It’s not a miracle, though. It’s a reward for the hard work he did by himself, for himself, on his own.

The thing about the scars is that he stares at them, some days, wondering how he could do that. Wondering about the distant him that dabbed alcohol on the cuts and faked an apathetic expression like maybe he could get the pain to go away if he didn’t acknowledge it — wondering why he kept at it, just another habit he made.

The thing about the scars is that they’re barely visible, because he only did it for a little while, because he didn’t cover himself up with wounds. Not even both arms, because he needed to keep them clean and well-kept and neat so that he could go to work the next morning. He forgets about that part of his life, sometimes.

“S’that?” Sasha asks as he reaches up to grab a box of cereal, and he genuinely doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

He looks at the box. “Bargain brand Froot Loops?”

“No, your arm. Where the ink stops.”

“Oh,” Zolf says. “Oh, it, uh,” Zolf says. “It’s just,” Zolf says, and then he doesn’t say anything at all.

Sasha takes the box from him and picks up the slightly-crushed one next to it. “Any other gaps in the tattoos?” She asks nonchalantly, but it’s the kind of nonchalance that only Sasha can do. The kind where it makes you feel utterly unnoticed even as you’re certain someone is staring at you as hard as they can.

Zolf shakes his head, putting the box in the shopping cart. “Just the one. It’s old.” Sasha nods thoughtfully.

“I’ve only got the one tattoo,” she says, and it’s a small thing, but still more than Zolf knew about his roommate before right this second, “so mine don’t make any gaps.”

“Burns?” Zolf asks, because he’s seen the beginnings of a circular scar about the size of a cigarette butt on the protruding bone of her wrist before she tugged her sleeve back down.

Sasha shrugs, tossing a box of knockoff Lucky Charms between her hands. “Yeah. S’why I quit smoking. Get rid of the temptation.”

“Yeah,” agrees Zolf. “I had to quit shaving until– y’know, until I worked through it. And then I just liked having the beard, so.”

“Can’t imagine you without a beard.”

“It’s not a great look, honestly.”

And then they just talk how they always do, about rent and Sasha’s kitchen experiments and Zolf’s weird morning habits. The thing about scars is that they don’t heal, but they fade. The thing about scars is that they’re just another story, just another bad decision, just one more thing you can learn about a person.

(The thing about scars like Zolf’s is that finding company is a better relief than sterilising spray and bandages could ever be.)

**Author's Note:**

> uuhhhhhh the title is from a song called “scars” and i have no idea who the artist is. thank u and good night.


End file.
